Showdown Looms Over Zoning Regulations for San Pedro

A Los Angeles planning official, responding to San Pedro’s burgeoning slow-growth movement, has recommended new zoning regulations that would scale back new construction to limit the population of the quaint seaside community.

At the same time, however, city planner Terry Speth has all but assured a showdown in San Pedro over residential development in two areas--Old San Pedro and Point Fermin--by proposing restrictions that do not go as far as many residents want in those largely single-family neighborhoods. A protest rally is planned for Saturday to demand tougher zoning in the two areas.

Speth, a hearing officer for the planning department, wrote the 80-page report after last month’s spirited public hearing on rezoning San Pedro. The report recommends more than 60 changes to the city’s community plan, which was adopted in 1980 and ordered revised by city lawmakers in 1989 after a wave of new apartments and other construction drew the ire of many in San Pedro.

If enacted by the planning commission and Los Angeles City Council, Speth’s proposals would significantly restrict San Pedro’s population, which leaped by 11% in the 1980s.

By most accounts, the community of about 75,000 residents could grow to no more than 90,000 for the foreseeable future. The current community plan permits enough housing to accommodate 103,000 residents.

Speth concurred with many of the recommendations of a 25-member citizens advisory committee that urged downzoning all of the community’s multifamily neighborhoods to limit population growth. In doing so, he split with other Los Angeles city planners who had earlier proposed zoning that was not as restrictive as that urged by the citizen’s committee.

Speth agreed with the committee’s recommendation that all neighborhoods zoned RD-1.5--which allows one unit for every 1,500-square-feet of land--should be held to more restrictive zoning. With most San Pedro lots measuring 5,000 square feet, Speth’s recommendations would effectively limit many San Pedro properties to two, not three, housing units.

“It’s a positive step toward planned growth in San Pedro . . . we have really gained a great deal,” the committee’s chairman, Noah Modisett, said of Speth’s report.

Added committee member Jerry Gaines, president of the San Pedro and Peninsula Homeowners Coalition: “It’s very encouraging that the city planning department is responding to the community’s concerns” about new multi-unit developments.

But to the dismay of some San Pedro residents, Speth’s report failed to recommend zoning and other building restrictions that would virtually preclude multi-unit development in Old San Pedro and Point Fermin--two neighborhoods that grew significantly during the building boom of the 1980s.

While recommending more restrictive zoning for both neighborhoods, Speth’s proposal would still allow three- or four-unit developments in Old San Pedro and duplexes in Point Fermin. Moreover, Speth recommended against a citizens’ proposal for a design review panel that could place other restrictions on multifamily development.

Noting that both neighborhoods now include multifamily housing, Speth said he could not justify an absolute halt to such development. Likewise, he said he could not support the call for a design review panel, fearing it could impose unreasonable demands on developers that would prove unenforceable for the city.

“I would rather have something nice and clean that can be enforced . . . you don’t want developers who can’t understand what they can or cannot do,” based on a design panel’s guidelines, Speth said.

Several community activists--and some committee members--disagreed sharply with Speth’s report and vowed to fight for stricter regulations when the zoning proposals come before the planning commission Thursday.

“San Pedro is fed up with the stucco-box blight,” said Roxanne Arian, who chairs the Save Old San Pedro coalition. “They (city planners) are looking for a solution that is easy for them to administer. But the community is looking for a solution that works, that does something to preserve” single-family neighborhoods in Old San Pedro and Point Fermin.

The coalition plans to sponsor a 2 p.m. rally Saturday at the Muller House, 1542 S. Beacon St., to demonstrate its opposition to the zoning regulations. The event is scheduled to include harbor-area City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, who thus far has taken no position on the proposed zoning regulations.

The rally will be a dress rehearsal for slow-growth advocates planning to attend Thursday’s special planning commission meeting on the zoning proposals. The 9 a.m. meeting will be held at the Harbor Department headquarters and will probably result in a commission decision that will be sent to the City Council for final action.

Last month, in a presentation coordinated by San Pedro’s slow-growth leaders, an estimated 200 residents turned out at a public hearing on proposed rezoning of San Pedro. All but a handful of them urged more restrictive zoning, particularly in Old San Pedro and Point Fermin.